Sam Husseini supposedly "may" run for Congress — I'm "mid" on this

Sam Husseini may run for Congress in Maryland. Sam, as long as you steer away from the conspiracy theory that Zionists whacked Jack, you'll get all the non-monetary support I can give from afar. Go down that road, though, and you're toast with me, and I'll bet with voters as well. 

The "may" is in scare quotes in the header because the Maryland Green Party has already chosen him. What, is Husseini going to pull an Uncle Billy Sherman and decline to run? I just learned that with teh google after already working on this piece, which adds an additional bit of spicyness. 

But, on his website, all he says is "exploratory committee" (which still asking for dinero). Sam, you've been nominated, and as a Green, not part of the duopoly. Intellectual dishonesty, like napalm, is apparently leaving a morning aroma. 

So, let's nuance that support more. I may nuance it completely away by the end.

A couple of years ago, Husseini went beyond legitimate (legitimate in terms of science, not in terms of thought-policing) questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology to claims about bioweaponization of COVID. Husseini does nuance himself on his Substack by noting a lab leak is not necessarily indicative of lab origin. But, in that same piece, he then goes down the nutter shitpile with:

The attempts to further define away dangerous lab work are even more nefarious when one considers that this entire field is arguably a euphemism for biowarfare.

Uhh, no. First, as I've noted on this issue, China would never allow US scientists access to Wuhan in such a case. Second, like the USSR with its pre-1989 bioweapons research, a Chinese bioweapons lab would be in a place far less populated than Wuhan. That's a serious level of lack of critical thinking.

He continues in that same vein in the next paragraph, using "accidental lab leak" and "biowarfare" in the same sentence.

Two paragraphs later, we go further down conspiratorial rabbit holes:

"Lab leak" implies accident. From the available information, it's possible that the pandemic origins had nothing to do with a lab (less and less likely by the day), it's possible that it accidentally leaked out a lab in Wuhan -- and it's possible that there was intentional release. There are a number of possibilities on the last possibility that I plan on fleshing out in a future piece. The most obvious is that someone was out to frame the Chinese.

Again, no. How could US government agents break into the Wuhan Institute of Virology and leak coronavirus-19? With that question mark, I now place Husseini into the realm of "just asking questions." Hold on to that thought. 

Oh, I'm not alone in wondering. Black Agenda Report, when it was still good, called him out. (This was the just about the top hit when I googled "Sam Husseini" + conspiracy theorist.) It nails the same things I did with this:

Husseini first pulls off this canard by arguing that there is no meaningful difference between biowarfare and biodefense. This is hardly true. Although there is always some overlap between basic science, medicine, preventive research, and warfare, there are also serious differences in emphasis, approach, practice, and funding that he glosses over. Husseini has to assert this tenuous proposition in order to implicate the Wuhan lab in suspected biowarfare malfeasance (or error), and to claim that there is a global biowarfare arms race between China and the US (rather than by the US against its opponents). That linguistic sleight of hand, in particular, the equivalence of biowarfare and biodefense is factually not true, and is certainly not true in one very obvious way regarding the Wuhan lab: if there were a biowarfare arms race happening around the world, the countries putatively at war with each other--the US and China--would not share or allow access to their labs to a competitor state, collaborate, or exchange their research and researchers.

And, the other shoe on that? 

As a point of contrast, no one, not a single Chinese national has ever set foot in Fort Dietrick, the key US biowarfare research lab. No Chinese university has ever collaborated with them. No Chinese funding has been directed to it. No one knows exactly what they are researching.

Yeah, handwaving, conspiracy theory version. 

Also at my second piece, tying to the top link in the third paragraph, he claims Mossad whacked Karen Silkwood. My take is that someone was indeed trying to intimate Silkwood, to the possible point of running her off the road, but not killing her, first, and that said person was working for Kerr-McGee, if anybody, and not Mossad.

He's also kind of clueless with VotePact. 

And, per the "about" page on his Substack, he also thinks the 2014 Ebola outbreak was a lab leak. Here's more that he's written on that. The main problem is that the paper argues from silence. Even if the "official" individual line that bats caused Ebola didn't find infected bats in the relevant area of West Africa doesn't mean that lab leak is the automatic alternative. (His own piece notes that Ebola symptoms are highly variable and West Africans on the ground suggested malaria as an alternative in some cases.) Wiki's long page on the outbreak indicates the "official" framing was never as precise as Husseini portrays it.

Now we get to the nutgraf, 1/3 through his piece on Ebola. That's that it could have been a lab leak from a US lab in Zaire (Democratic Republic of the Congo). Wiki's page addresses that; it notes a 2014 outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed the viral strain there closely related to previous outbreaks in Central Africa, but the West African outbreak showed no links. 

And, at this point, I don't really feel like even grokking through the other 2/3. Why? Because it's the same level of fucking stupidity as his take on COVID.

Let's add that he has defended Brainworm Bobby against charges of antivaxxerism. Speaking of, here's Brainworm Bobby aping Husseini's line of thought with nutbar claims that Lyme disease and RSV were also created by gain-of-function research. Per the first link in this paragraph and my top link, it also sounds like Husseini was already a JFK conspiracy theorist before latching on to the "zionists did it" angle. This Shitter link of his offers further confirmation. Furthering the nuttery, the person he quote-Shits, Monika Wiesak, apparently believes that JFK Jr was also "whacked" rather than being an underskilled, irrationally overconfident pilot. Otherwise, Monika Wiesak is a total fruitcake herself, and contra her "JFK: Myth vs Reality" the real myth vs reality is guzzling the Camelot Kool-Aid versus knowing the reality of NSAM-263 in Kennedy foreign policy and knowing that in domestic policy the best thing Jack ever did for civil rights was to have Lee Harvey Oswald blow his head off so LBJ could make him into a martyr for the cause.

So, actually, my thought is, best of luck against Glenn Ivey. I do know that Maryland has a fairly strong Green Party to help. But, I won't go out of my way in offering support from afar. And, if you were running against a non-Zionist Democrat, I wouldn't give you the time of day. Even against Ivey, were I in MD-4, I'd have to hold my nose.

My second thought is, once again, contra Noah Berlatsky, who's not really a leftist himself, this shows that horseshoe theory is true and the likes of Husseini illustrate that. 

Texas Progressives look at the rest of Merikkka

I split my version of this week's Texas Progressives roundup into two parts. The in-Texas stuff comes later this week.

Democratic insurgents are stepping front and center, as Abdul El-Sayed looks to get the US Senate nod in Michigan (as Elissa Slotkin tries to surf between the lines) and Francesca Hong (recently profiled by Klippenstein) leads the race for Wisconsin's gubernatorial nod, despite incumbent Tony Evers' meddling. It appears lessons from Maine and elsewhere are being learned slowly, if at all. And, to the degree insurgents are staking out antizionist stances, the old guard may not be learning them at all. Ken now has an update piece about both.

Matthew Cole and Max Blumenthal are in various stages of legal battles against the government on its attempts to discover sources on their electronic devices. In Max's case, the problem was instigated by the person I called "Loony Laura Loomer, lying lizard."

Your Local Epidemiologist urges everyone (Republicans) to leave Dr. Fauci alone already. I will, YLE, if he admits his many screwups, which I rounded up in writing about his not-totally-noble original Platonic lie (also calling out his defenders, which include you), a follow-up less noble yet Platonic lie about herd immunity, followed by the set of non-public, totally ignoble, less than Platonic lies exposed by his emails. Kuff, if you're going to include a link like this in your version of the roundup, it's not going to run here without being thoroughly backgrounded. Rand Paul et al are largely full of shit, but Fauci is a piece of work himself.

Platner: Deflated, not just deflating like a cheap balloon, with my own callout of Klip

Riffing off my Substack version of this, earlier and shorter, Platner is now deflated, past tense. He has "suspended" his campaign. Two years ago, I had people attack me when I said Brainworm Bobby was quitting the presidential race after he "suspended" his campaign. We all know what it means, so STFU Brainworm MAGAt MA-HAt asshats.  (I know other sites have reported he has "ended" his campaign or is "resigning" as the Democratic nominee, but this one is better.)

Most politically minded people have probably already heard the claims that Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner raped a woman he was dating. I saw that via Payday Report, on my blogroll. There, Mike Elk added that Hasan Piker found it believable.

Meanwhile, some people are claiming, like this Rhombus Ticks, that it's all a setup. Unfortunately, I was replying to his reply to someone else, so I can't counterblock him. Damn, Substack needs to fix that. Other readers of this? Please block him. (He claimed this was all a nothingburger compared to Epstein, was a conspiracy, and also that the self-implosion/takedown of Al Franken was also a conspiracy.)

This is no surprise.

The Platner engine was leaking oil at the start of the week. A Maine teevee station notes as part of its story that he had already postponed some campaign events. Also per that? Jenny Racicot did not come out of nowhere. She first spoke to the NYT five days before the Maine primary, without mentioning details.

This Substack, a piece at All Your Days, says he talked to staff Monday night and, by saying he's in control of who replaces him, indicates he's planning on resigning — for the right replacement. 

So how did we get here? Oppo research done on the cheap, per All Your Days:

Here’s how the disaster unfolded. The Wall Street Journal reports that Dan Moraff, the progressive strategist who recruited Platner and ran his launch, asked a Democratic research firm for an expedited, cut-rate review of the candidate rather than the thorough background check that has become standard in major Senate races. That would have been a weeks-long process costing roughly $20,000. Instead, New York-based Northside Research delivered a brief risk-assessment memo in three days for $6,250, federal disclosures show, in place of the usual research book that should have run hundreds of pages. 

Northside’s memo flagged some of Platner’s problematic Reddit posts, but it missed the full trove. It also missed the death’s-head tattoo—the one resembling the Nazi SS Totenkopf—that Platner wore for 18 years before learning, he says, what it evoked. It similarly missed the sexually explicit texts he sent to several women after his 2023 marriage—texts his own wife discovered and reported to his aides, who decided they were a private matter.

Ooops. 

I suspect that Dan Moraff will be toxic from here on out, as will Northside Research. According to search-engine grabs of this paywall-protected WSJ piece, Moraff said he wanted to blow up how Democrats do campaigns. Well, he blew up two things — his reputation and probably Dems' chances of regaining the Senate.

That said, it's not just Moraff doing stupidities, per All Your Days:

In North Carolina, Schumer and the party’s Senate campaign arm reached into the primary and anointed Cal Cunningham, a clean-cut veteran who, the Associated Press noted, was a star recruit of the minority leader himself. Cunningham was straight out of central casting for the Schumer biopic, perhaps, but in October 2020, his sexts to a woman who was not his wife became public. Sound familiar? Nonetheless, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee shoveled millions more into the race. Cunningham lost a must-win state by two points after leading in the polls, as Sabato’s Crystal Ball recounts.

Shock me. There's more there. 

As for Northside? If this is the correct website, the teh suck minimalist design itself speaks volumes. Per a description of the company, the website and head honcho Jonathan Davis on this piece, that has to be it.  A 2023 issue of the Intelligencer has a bit more. Coming next? Finger-pointing, of course.

This guy, meanwhile, answers the Rhombus Ticks nutters, beyond what Elk said.

That said, many others. like Rhombus Ticks, are surely wondering "why now"? (Some, like him, aren't wondering, in reality, they're "just asking questions" about both "why now" and "who is she"?)

It appears the June story was a "marker," if you will. But, with Mills having suspended her campaign, who could pick up that marker? The one real progressive alternative, Amanda LaFlamme, had to run as a write-in after not getting enough signatures. See my coverage here. 

That said, in writing earlier about the Totenkopf, I mentioned oppo research! And other "progressive" concerns that a leftist non-Democrat would have! Here: 

Obviously, I can't read all his deleted Reddit posts. They were written years later. For someone who claims they were leftist by then, a certain amount of them cut against that grain. And, yes, PTSD is serious and real. But, per the Latin bon mot, "in vino veritas," PTSD doesn't necessarily cause an "alt-persona" to arise. 

This also show that he's a political novice. Experienced candidates running for something as high as a US Senate seat do "oppo research" on themselves to find out in advance what opponents might dig up, and to be prepared in advance. 

I didn't think to check his Wiki much in advance. I'm as troubled by the fact that his family was moneyed enough to send him to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss as anything else, even if he got financial aid. Did he get booted, though? That's not the only high school he attended. The other is also private, originally Catholic but now nonreligious.

Still rings true. (Speaking of, why was his eliteness not called out more? Or, in light of all of the above, did nobody look at why he dropped out of Hotchkiss?)

== 

Addenda to this versus my Substack post Tuesday. 

I'm sure after July 27, there will be more time to answer all of this.  (That is the deadline for Maine Dems getting a replacement, assuming he resigns by July 13.)

Per a Drop Site reporter's Twitter, Platner volunteers want him to resign and have a candidate: Troy Jackson. 

Contra Black Twitter like this guy retweeting this? 

Yeah, you were stanning for a Black candidate like Kamala Harris the Zionist genocidalist, while I, actually skeptical, rejected Jill Stein as a hypocrite and voted for the Hispanic Communist Claudia de la Cruz.

Or per first guy retweeting this?

Sure, Blacks have a higher degree of skepticism. Where are the Black "Nones," let alone agnostics or atheists? And, Black buy-in to evangelical Christianity explains Black sex on the down low and greater AIDS rates.

If you're going to be tribalist, you're going to get it back. 

Per other thoughts in general, note that I noted months ago, besides the other issues, "Hotchkiss," meaning I didn't totally buy the "working class" narrative. Note per my observance about Amanda LaFlamme and her getting generally shunned by Maine unions that I further didn't buy it. 

Speaking of? I called out Klipp, who had a non-apology for previous support for Platner, which arguably, per a previous post he linked, included support for Platner deliberately not being given a full vetting by Moraff. In a highly competitive primary, you have the money to spend on an additional $20K or whatever for a more thorough vetting.

Here's what I said in restacking him.

Per my own piece, with link to an older Blogger piece, I DID WONDER, long before the Maine primary, if Platner’s team had done in-depth self-oppo research. We of course now know the answer was “no,” and that this was deliberate. Did you wonder about that in the past?

Per this comment near the end of your current piece: 

Ruling out anyone with Reddit post-level flaws bars millions of otherwise decent people from politics. The only people left are the exact kind of squeaky-clean, McKinsey consultant politicians that was the entire point of my piece in the first place.

You’re presenting a twosiderish fake dilemma and at least backdoor endorsing a campaign whose recruiter deliberately did this.

You’re been around this biz yourself at the national level long enough, you know that’s why real self-oppo-research is done. Per my piece, Mainers had options to Platner and Mills, and unfortunately one of them in particular never got traction. Feel free to report about that, and other things, next time.

Ken also boo-hooed about Popehat Ken White's callout of him.

I wrote about that on Substack; see there rather than a repeat here.

I do want to add that it's far more than Popehat kicking Ken in the nads, and others are now kicking him for his smug take on Popehat. Here's a good one; it also calls out Ryan Grim. There are plenty of others.

I think Ken is trying to insist that he was just and only writing about upsetting the Democratic politics as usual applecart. But, the terms and field of debate aren't yours alone to define, Ken.

To put it another way? If you have shit in one hand and New Coke shit in the other, you still have shit in both hands. 

And, Ken, until you admit that, you're still going to be holding shit, and stanning for shit, too often. 

Why didn't you ask how somebody who went to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss got labeled as a workingman populist? For that matter, why didn't you ask if he dropped out, or if he got kicked out? 

Mike Elk on Payday Report HAS, in fact, raised that issue, in his piece about Platner's possible and hoped-for replacement, Troy Jackson:

While many complained that Graham Platner, who hailed from a wealthy family, presented himself as a “working class” guy, the 58-year-old Jackson grew up in poverty in the north of the state and has a history of direct action as a unionized logger.

That said, Mike links to David Dayen at The American Prospect, who notes that the Maine Democrat Party could squeeze Platner supporters in what appears to not allow voters a chance at participating in choosing Platner's replacement. Give the whole thing a read.

Mike also, in another piece, has a callout of Moraff based on personal experience. 

Jeet Heer, with this subhed:

Democratic leaders have rightfully lost credibility. But that’s no excuse for political adventurers to seize the moment and pump up false saviors.

followed by this:

This is even though, during his rapid ascent and equally quick plummet from political stardom, Platner waved more red flags than the track marshals in a hundred auto races. Among the major scandals he endured were: the Nazi tattoo on his chest; six years of employment as a private defense contractor (in other words, as a mercenary) for the firm then known as Blackwater; a history of lurid, misogynist, and generally inflammatory Reddit posts; a recent pattern of sexting other women while married; and allegations of abusive behavior towards women.

Yeah, Blackwater? Should have been immediately disqualifying besides his problems with women. 

 and Katha Pollitt are also weighing in on the bad vetting, as I await Klipp sticking his turtle head out of his shell. 

And it keeps getting worse. Looks like somebody should have vetted Moraff better.

Mike Elk reports that Pittsburgh-area Congresscritter Summer Lee booted him from her 2022 campaign over allegations of sexual harassment against HIM. Maybe that's why he just gave Platner nickel-version vetting. 

And more yet, with a sort-of callout of Bernie Sanders, too:

You GO, Mike. 

While campaign videos distributed by the Sanders campaign described Platner as a working-class oyster farmer, this was far from the truth. Platner’s grandfather, Warren Platner, was a wealthy interior designer and architect who designed the iconic restaurant Windows of the World on top of the World Trade Center and the headquarters of the Ford Foundation. 

His father was a wealthy attorney and his mother owned a high-end restaurant outside of Bar Harbor, Maine. His father gave him the money to buy a house and his mother bought his oysters for her high-end restaurant outside of the tourist haven of Acadia National Park. Platner lived on a $60,000-a-year military pension and by all accounts did not struggle to pay bills.

This is all related to the "Hotchkiss" stuff that caught my attention. Platner WAS and IS NOT a "working class everyday person." 

And? Maroff has now fired back, calling Elk part of the political establishment. What a laugh. (And he did it in the New York Post.)

Will Klip do the same? 

Meanwhile, Brains, with an assist from Ted Rall going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, is staking out at least partially the same stance. Shock me. It is interesting to note only 4 comments to and 14 reposts of that Shit, counting mine. Ted not having that much reach any more? Did he ever?

Strangeabbott hires the Schatz to give Texas elections the Schitz

Strangeabbott hires nutter Nate Schatzline to somehow try to fuck around with elections and do T-Rump's bidding. That's what it means, Kuff. NOT hiring him to replace Jane Nelson as secretary of state is kind of a tell. Outside of fucking around with elections, as the story notes, he'll be Strange's point man on trying to get the Lege to OK closed primaries. Note that Schatz pushed a bill to that end in 2025 but it never got out of committee, meaning Strange is going to probably have to do a fair bit of strongarming.

Schitz — yeah, let's just go there — is also a 2020 election falser and more.

And, in re that Trib piece, as I said on Kuff's posting of it:

Once again, the Trib tries to erase third parties. I don’t know who the Libertarians might be running or not, but I know the Greens have a practicing Muslim, Shehla Fahzi for comptroller, who promises to trash all anti-BDS language in the Comptroller’s office, a pledge I am unaware of Dem Sarah Eckhardt making. (I’m going in part on an interview the Observer had shortly before primaries, when it never raised that issue with her.)

Shock me. 

Eckhardt? She is sympathetic to pro-Palestinian protestors, but has not made a specific pledge like that. 

Texas Progressives

Off the Kuff notes Greg Abbott's pseudo-evolution on data centers, in which even Sid Miller is making him look bad. 

SocraticGadfly talked about self-hating Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims attending the GOP state convention.

Talarico told Texas Democrats in convention the party must stop taking Blacks for granted. Black Democrats agree, beyond Jasmine Crockett's tepid support for him, which will remain tepid through November. That's why people like Kuff need to pump their brakes.

Bernie Sanders hater Dolores Huerta, not the most democratic person in Nevada, told Texas Democrats to "save democracy." See here and here for my take on 2016 and 2020 Nevada primaries.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project posted on Abbott’s likely far-right pick for Texas Secretary of State. With Harris County having a Black Muslim progressive woman as Democratic nominee for County Judge & Texas Republicans being anti-democratic and bigoted, we must be prepared for anything. 

Big John Cornyn makes a tiny break with the GOP establishment, worrying about closed primaries backfiring. 

Texas rabbis rip the Jewish fig leaf off "Judeo-Christian" over the State Board of Ed's proposed list of bibul verses for public school reading. Yeah, there will be lawsuits. 

In something parallel, the Monthly says "Christian nationalists are cheering" for the SBOE's proposed changes to school curricula. 

Contra RRC claims about doing all it can about old well blowouts, Russell Gold talks about "the Dead Sea of Texas," a Pecos County brine lake that's been around 20 years. 

SpaceX: Unsafe workplace.

"'Hunter vs United States': The most important criminal case of the term" is a very good and very important read about Justice Neil Gorsuch's likely thought on expanding the scope of jury trials, and as a sidebar, how, on at least some issues, SCOTUS conservatives don't all fit in one package.

The Texas Signal celebrates Pride in Caldwell County.

Your Local Epidemiologist highlights the great success of the HPV vaccine.

A couple of Texas political items of note

First, via Independent Political Report, with link there to original story by Ballot Access News, former Democratic lite gov candidate Michael Collier, trying to get on the ballot this year for the same spot as an independent, is suing the state over the petition signature gathering window, and is now backed by the Forward Party.

Kuff, of course, hates this. He hates it to the point that in his last graf, he pulls out the old left hand of the duopoly line, state-level version, to essentially say that a vote for Collier is "really" a vote for Patrick. I told him he had better not ever say that to my online face.

Also, the Trib piece he links to writes Green Kevin McCormick and Libertarian Anthony Castro out of the election. Shock me. (And, it's useless to get. the Trib, or the Monthly, to ever admit wrongness.)

Second, also via IPR, the Texas Libertarian Party is rejecting AIPAC-funded candidates. Yes, it's highly unlikely that's happening anyway, but still nice to see that for the record. 

Self-hating Blacks, Hispanics and Muslims attend Texas GOP convention

This picture should say it all, or nearly so:

Samar Halabi is the lady on left. That's clearly an African-American woman at right, and apparently a Hispanic in back.

And, they are self-hating, the Black and the Hispanic, even if they don't recognize it.

 

The Texas Trib has the details of the Texas Republican state convention. 

It's a version of Martin Niemoller's old poem, augmented by the fact that racist wingnuts HAVE ALREADY come after you in the past, and some, whom the Texas GOP, or at least its biggest donors, have not disavowed, like Nick Fuentes, are trying to come after you again today, along with Mooslims.

But, I included Muslims in the self-hating, did I not?

First, the lady pictured:

Halabi, a teacher, declined to say how she would vote in November, but said that she is a Republican and always votes.

Well, there you go.

And more, from her husband:

Well, there you really go.

Halabi and her husband, Amjad Muhtaseb, were both registered as delegates for the convention. 

Muhtaseb, an engineer and business owner, said Muslims are conservative by nature. 

“We believe in Adam and Eve,” he said. “We don’t believe in this, multiple gender. We don’t drink. We don’t gamble. We are against pornography.” 

They hope to bring more Muslims into the Republican Party.

And this:

When it comes time to vote in the midterms, Tarek Hussein plans to support his party where he feels it’s deserved. 

“I will vote Republican for the good Republican candidate,” he said.

You've been kicked in the teeth, and told things will get worse in two years at the 2028 state convention, but you're back for more.

Yes, it will get worse.

Strangeabbott last year designated the Council on American-Islamic Relations a terrorist group. Muhtaseb and Tarek Hussein, who founded its Houston chapter, were both not just state GOP attendees but delegates.

Here you are on that:

Throughout the week, members of the convention attempted to remove them as delegates. 

Ultimately, the party concluded that even the full convention did not have the power to boot them. However, the convention on Friday updated its rules so that next time it meets in 2028, the Credentials Committee could vote to remove delegates with ties to a terrorist organization.

Have fun coming back in 2028.

 

Let's add in that CAIR national is suing Strangeabbott over the designation. 

Side note: This illustrates to a T the problems with a Westminster first-past-the-post political system when combined with a strong-presidential leadership model, or strong-governor model at the state level. Conservative Muslims have no home in a party rife with bigotry and third parties that might have room have no traction. That said, the American Solidarity Party, an American version of the Catholic-oriented Christian Democrat parties of Western Europe, would welcome conservative Muslim voters, I'm sure.

 

That said, sometimes, you move. Period. As a third-party voter who’s extended that third-party voting past presidential races to governor and senator, and now past that to lower-level races, I know that.

 

None of this is to suggest that every Black and Hispanic Republican is "self-hating." But, every one engaging in open bigotry against some other race, or here, a world religious organization, or elsewhere, against sexual orientation, is "self-hating" in my book. Note that I did not say you had to become Muslim — or teh gay. But, tolerance without open bigotry? Yeah, short of that, you're self-hating. 

I'll eat my hat if Texas Dems flip 12 state House seats

They claim they can, per the Trib.

I know why they think that.

One reason is, like 2018, Trump is on the downslope, and it's in a midterm.

So, context? The 2017 House was 95-55. That was cut to 83-67 in 2019. That's probably not a fair comp, as the 95-55 split was incredibly high. So, with Trump actually running for that second term in 2020? 

The House split was unchanged. It then widened 3 in 2023 and 2 more in 2025. 

Also, Trump was not yet that unpopular with Never Trumper Rethuglicans in 2018, too. I can't remember what was behind the big shift and the Trib offers no insight.

As for the other reasons they think they have a shot? 

Kenny Boy Paxton will not be such a lead anchor for the GOP as they think, and Teenybopper Talarico will not be such a boost. It's possible that many Texas Hispanics who flopped to Trump two years ago look at Talarico and stay home. They don't vote Paxton, but they don't vote Talarico either.

The third reason? We'll see if redistricting overreach plays out in the state House as well as US Congress. Might be room around the edges but no more.

Otherwise? If a fragile would-be cease-fire gets extended beyond the 60 days of June 19, if ratified then, gas prices keep going down and Trump keeps looking better that way.

Strangeabbott has partially removed data centers as an electoral issue, though not totally. 

Platner wins; DC dishes as Klipp misses

As political junkies all know, political novice and oysterman around town Graham Platner won Maine's Democratic Senate primary Tuesday night.

I offered my thoughts on his Totenkopf tattoo and other matters of his campaign about a month ago. That was before the sexting after marriage came out, and before the newest allegations of some form of abuse came out as well. Early voting in Maine also started about that time, meaning, especially since Democrats generally are more likely to vote early than Rethugs, that Platner didn't have to fully face the music on these issues in the primary.

That leads me to Klippenstein.

Ken used his space on Substack Tuesday to dunk on national Democraps and media punditry types for trying to boost Gov. Janet Mills and her walking dead campaign, while calling out the media punditry for publishing allegations against him as fact.

Ken says:

The New York Times was so desperate to align itself with the Party in Washington that it published allegations that it said it “could not independently corroborate” — something I’ve literally never seen them do before.

Versus something it claimed was corroborated, but wasn’t, like the story claiming Palestinian rapes?

Versus something I don’t think the NYT even tried to corroborate, but just took a “trust us” stance, like Judith Miller on Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”?

Maybe not in exactly the way it did with Platner, but yeah, the NYT. has done this before, or similar.

As for his chances in the general, Ken is pretty right that Maine is hard to poll in primary races, in part because of ranked choice voting. But, unless there's a "name" third candidate, whether independent, Green or Libertarian, in the general, the RCV issue itself isn't in that much play. And, on the ticket-splitting and him looking at Collins overcoming polling takes to beat Sara Gideon in 2020? That one cuts both ways. Wiki's piece on the Maine 2026 Senate race notes Collins has outperformed other Republicans on the Maine ballot in all previous races.

The miss? Ken has uses this race to bash DC, rather than to talk about Democratic alternatives to both Platner and Mills.

Like Amanda LaFlamme. I only learned about her on Tuesday when I did teh Google to find out what other candidates were in the race. I don't know why she was only a write-in. The Bangor Daily News reported in February that she actually filed in 2025, plenty of time to get the 2,000 signatures necessary. But the first piece says "failed to get." So, did more progressive Dems in Maine deem Platner a lock? Well, he only filed in August 2025, two months after her.

She sounds like she could have been good on multiple issues, but, for whatever reason, got no traction. I'm sure there's something I'm missing, but I don't know what it is, and teh Goggle hasn't really helped me.

Since Platner was and is a flawed candidate, and yet he's the best Maine Dems could present, I'd like to hear more about why LaFlamme failed to gain that traction and less, for now at least, of dunking on Chuck Schumer and national media. 

The Maine Green Independent Party had its state convention May 30, and per Wiki's page on the election, per Ballotpedia, and per the party's book of face and website, sadly appears not to have a candidate. Ballotpedia lists three minor candidates, but they all appear to be Democrats who dropped out of the Doink primary. A sad election in many ways it shall be. 

Texas Progressives

Off the Kuff highlights the Texas Railroad Commissioner race as the latest example of Republicans getting even worse.

SocraticGadfly notes that Trump's education voucher tax credit could explode on top of Texas vouchers in January; looking to this November, he thinks data centers are not a big political needle-mover.

Some Texas Lege wingnuts and the "public policy" orgs want to further expand the 2023 "Death Star" bill. Given that this was the model for the abortion law by providing "enforcement" by private lawsuit, some of the push is to let the AG sue.

Related? More than 130 primarily smaller-sized Texas towns have their tax rates frozen over lack of annual audits, and now must play catch-up, with the lessened funding hindering catch-up. 

Israhell even shoots Palestinian babies. 

Trump AG Todd Blanche faces a June 14 ticking time bomb. (I doubt he'd actually be disbarred in New York, but you never know.) 

Daniel Vaughn calls on barbecue gourmands and smokers alike to remember that Texas barbecue was not based on brisket and doesn't need to be limited to it today.

Chris Hooks says, in hindsight, that impeachment was the best thing to happen to Kenny Boy. 

Dan Crenshaw lets it rip with the Monthly. 

Space City Weather spells out what you need to know for the 2026 hurricane season.

The Texas Signal presents an updated brief history of Pride in Texas.

Law Dork analyzes the appellate court ruling that protects current enlisted transgender service members from discharge.

Texas Public Opinion Research asks some broader questions about current issues.

Franklin Strong explains what's going on with the SBOE's bizarre required reading list, and what you can do to help.

Observer has surprisingly non-sanguine take on Talarico odds

The Observer notes not all Republican pundits are afraid of Talarico swamping Paxton. This:

Brendan Steinhauser, a GOP strategist in Texas, isn’t so confident that Talarico’s theology will land with swing voters. While O’Rourke was, and Talarico is, a young, dynamic candidate able to make the Senate race highly competitive, Steinhauser believes Talarico will have a harder time maneuvering around his past. “O’Rourke was a much fresher face, like he had more room to define himself.” 

Since Talarico secured the Democratic nomination, Paxton has seized on past Talarico statements about trans kids and God being “nonbinary” to deride the Democrat as a fake Texan, fake Christian, and radical leftist. Steinhauser said that while Paxton should focus more on his accomplishments as attorney general, culture-war issues remain a strong motivator among the moderate to conservative base. “Those words are going to get played in a loop all the way to November,” said Steinhauser. That’s a standard Republican playbook: In 2024, Ted Cruz’s campaign plastered the state with ads attacking Democratic challenger Colin Allred—who ultimately lost by about eight points—on the issue of transgender kids in sports.

Is an interesting observation. 

For many "moderates," not just conservatives, transgenderism and transsexualism are a "third rail." State and national Democratic apparatchiks may not like that, but that doesn't change the fact on the ground. 

I'm already on record as thinking he doesn't do much better than Beto-Bob did against Havana Ted in 2018. 

==

Meanwhile, the Pander Bear watch on Talarico continues. He promises to help farmers by reducing the federal tax on diesel. Gee, isn't Trump talking about that? He did also mention the war in Iran, but "somehow" avoided mentioning the country behind that.

Paxton's impeachment lawyer endorses Talarico

Dan Cogdell, who also represented Kenny Boy in his criminal securities fraud case, has done the switcheroo, as detailed here by NOTUS. The nut grafs:

Dan Cogdell, a Houston-based defense lawyer who represented the Texas attorney general in both the impeachment trial and a long-running securities fraud case, told NOTUS in a statement that his former client “has lost sight of his core mission, which is to represent the people of Texas.” 

“And unlike Ken, I believe to my core that James Talarico believes in unity over division and that he knows how to assemble not only Democrats, but Independents and Republicans, and we need that right now,” Cogdell said.

OK, let's look at the first.

Ken Paxton wasn't a choir boy when you represented him, so why are you switching now? Technically, the switch isn't totally new; the story says Cogdell donated to Talarico in March after the Dem primary. (He could have donated to Paxton as well, of course, and did so last year.)

The Trib weighs in with local background. Among that is that Cogdell voted in the Dem primary in Harris County.

That said, it also notes Cogdell has represented the East Plano Islamic Center. So, he's a gun for hire in his past legal career.

Side note: "Big John" Cornyn, he of VD Hooks' onetime bromance at the Monthly, attacked EPIC in the past just like Paxton. 

Anyway, this is "nice," but no more than that, as far as Talarico's election campaign. 

John Cornyn postmortem roundup

At the Monthly, not only is there not a CD Hooks piece fellating Cornyn one last time, but Ben Rowan offers a skeptic's guide to November, while getting people like Strangeabbott his own self to do some pearl-clutching. He offers this,  halfway through:

Everyone I spoke to, in both parties, believes that the national environment is better for Democrats this year than in 2018—Trump is even more unpopular, facing inflation and the Iran war. And they believe Talarico is a better statewide candidate than O’Rourke. At roughly this point in 2018, O’Rourke trailed Cruz in the polls by 5 points. The polling aggregate currently finds Talarico running 1.5 points ahead of Paxton (he leads by as much as 8 in one survey and trails by as much as 2 in another). As one longtime GOP strategist, who requested anonymity given their current position, told me: “This is not a made-up race. You are covering a real race.”

I'm still more skeptical. We'll see. One reason for skepticism is most those polls had Talarico vs a generic Republican, before the runoff. That always favors a "name." Rowan notes that himself, later on.

And, he concludes with:

Even if Ken isn’t actually all that good, most everyone I talked to believed Democrats could still find a way to blow their advantage. After laying out his fantasy of exactly one GOP statewide candidate losing, and explaining how this year there really were signs a Democrat could win, the former Republican legislator caught himself mid-reverie. “Democrats are killing us now,” he started, “but—and I’m going to use a naughty word here, don’t hold it against me—Democrats can f— up a one-car parade.”

Bingo. 

Kuff peddles some Kool-Aid on possible GOP defections. I'm not drinking.

Nate Cohn at the NYT talks about Hispanic numbers, ignores the Tex-ass reputation as a nonvoting state. 

The Trib fellating John Cornyn? Not surprised. 

At the Observer, Justin Miller doesn't fellate him, but does think Kenny Boy Paxton's win is "judgment day" for the Texas GOP. I shall officially laugh on Election Day.

Gus Bova there also salutes James Talarico's chances while noting the Anglo-ness of Dems' top candidates in general. 

My initial guess? Talarico runs as close as Beto-Bob vs Havana Ted, 2018, but no closer.

No Green in the race? As I told Kuff, I'm undervoting for sure unless Talarico has a real, full-bore, statement about Gaza. That's at minimum and I'm not holding my breath on that. 

Texas primary runoffs hot take: "The Art of No Deal"

Boy, did Cornyn get smoked. No two ways about it.

The Bulwark's piece notes how much of a Pander Bear he had become, complete with Shit from Shitter, on Big John's own account, with the photo. And, that's a full year ago!

Why didn't Trump endorse earlier? Beyond the Bulwark talking about him having bigger fish to fry, I think maybe he thought Paxton didn't need an endorsement.

There's also a third reason. And a fourth reason.

Third? Trump's a frontrunner; he probably read the March primary tea leaves, or had it done for him.

Fourth? Trump likes to see people grovel. And, this runoff election was perfectly teed up for him to make both Cornyn and Paxton "twist slowly in the wind" like Pat Gray at Nixon's hands.

As for Cornyn, and that Pander Bear photo? Call it "The Art of the No Deal."

The Times has more. Beyond Cornyn's race, it notes the Super PAC backing nutter Democrat Congressional candidate Maureen Galindo had GOP ties. If you're a super PAC, you're supposed to cover your tracks better than that.

Just about everybody is talking about how lame-duck GOP senators may stand up more to Trump. Except around the margins, don't hold your breath. It may not even happen that much with the likes of Thomas Massie in the House.

Don't believe me? Believe this piece linked off the Bulwark, titled "Weep Not for Cornyn":

Maybe a grudging, strange new respect will form for Cornyn over the coming months as he joins Senators Cassidy and Tillis in offering the most modest pushback imaginable against our Nero-in-Chief. And then John Cornyn will be forgotten, and to the extent that he is remembered he will vaguely be thought of as that one Texas senator who wasn’t as bad as the other one: not as sleazy as Cruz, not as corrupt as Paxton, etc. 

But I don’t think he should get away that easily. 

No, it is as important to call out our gutless elected officials as it is to celebrate the brave ones. I hope John Cornyn is remembered for what he is: an incompetent and cowardly senator who put himself before his country. 

I texted a politico friend about Cornyn’s coming defeat, and the friend replied that, yes, Cornyn is a victim of the disease that has infected one of our country’s two major parties. 

Victim? Oh no. John Cornyn is not and never was a victim. Actually, he has had more agency in our country’s existential fight against Trumpism than roughly 99.999% of Americans. In 2021 there were exactly 100 people who could have put this sad and sorry chapter of American history behind us for good, and in that moment John Cornyn hid behind Mitch McConnell’s skirt, who was himself hiding behind a completely contrived constitutional justification for letting Trump get away with an attempted coup—as if McConnell himself wasn’t the reason the Senate trial was delayed until after January 20. 

Fifty-seven United States senators were able to do the right and obvious thing and voted to convict and bar that evil man from ever holding public office again, including seven Republican senators. John Cornyn, however, could not do what his oath of office required.

That's about right. (Added emphasis mine.)

As for James Talarico? I'll give you 94 percent odds, right now, that he doesn't win. That's even with him doing his own Pander Bear to the degree of trying to normalize Cornyn. Anybody who claims the Magnificat in Luke supports reproductive choice will pander about anything.

The only other questions I have are, first, will Talarico lean into, or run away from, already clearly being standard neolib Democrat, and second, will he actually say something on Gaza? I'm pretty sure I already know the answers, and that he'll lose to Paxton in Cornyn style rather than with principles.

The Red Sox make themselves look stupid, give Graham Platner a boost

The Boston Red Sox pulled down a Graham Platner ad that, in part, attacked the team for selling out to private equity, tying in with his populist campaign. 

As far as the issues at hand? Seeing this story posted by the British newspaper The Independent at r/mlb, it seems there may be a bit of confusion by one Sox fan, and bigger issues by the team.

Basically, we seem to be getting a bit of intimidation by the ownership mixed with an overly aggressive interpretation of trademark law.

First? Per the Boston Herald, the ad in full is on Platner's Shitter account, with the same font. That there says that Platner campaign isn't worried about the intellectual property claim.

Secod, the NESN statement does NOT say what the intellectual property issue is. That's where I see the bit of intimidation coming in.

Also, technically, ONLY the "B" is trademarked, and otherwise, the team name. The font is reportedly hand-drawn and, the Sox would have to prove that is EXACTLY the same font, not a very similar commercially available font.

Above and beyond all that, you can use a trademarked phrase in a political ad, within certain limitations. Here's some basic law. The key thing is, Platner is not implying the team is endorsing him. Far from it. The Sox would have pretty serious uphill sledding if they really thought about pursuing legal action. 

HEre you go:

Private equity is taking our homes. It's taking our hospitals. It's taking beloved local businesses and stripping them for parts.

And now private equity is running the Red Sox into the ground.

Our new ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/w7LapElpdA

— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 22, 2026

Let's see what happens next. 

Again, per the one Redditor? The NESN statement didn't say WHAT credible concerns. We can assume the font; we can also assume, given that people let this ad get through in the first place, their credibility level isn't that high. The Sox would have been much better off simply refusing the ad in the first place. Somebody didn't eye it, and now they look like idiots. 

Otherwise, I wrote two weeks ago about Platner's tattoos and other issues. 

 

 

Texas Progressives talk Paxton-Cornyn and more

Off the Kuff has his fun with the Trump endorsement of the crooked Ken Paxton over the dignity-deprived John Cornyn. 

SocraticGadfly offers two timely pieces, one elections-related and the other, on a surface level more humorous but in reality perhaps not. First, he looked at the Trib story on Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton and saw that one Talarico staffer badly failed Math 101, probably not a good thing or good sign. Secondly, at his Substack, he imagined a graduate of the Class of 2026 facing the world of AI in job hunting. 

Hey, Kenny Boy, are you suing the phone company, then USPS, after Discord? I'm no fan of much of modern social media, but these exploitation-abetting lawsuits are ridiculous. If only Kenny Boy would sue tech companies over abetting genocide in Gaza.

People indeed need to mourn that now, if you're a student activist on a UT System campus, the president could eliminate your favorite course. They also need to mourn the lies the regents are telling to try to justify this.

Tarrant County is such a conservative outlier among Texas' largest counties it hates black people to death. 

I need to add "future fascist" to my moniker for Jonathan Stickland, whom I have long called "Former Fetus Future Fuckwad." 

RIP Barney Frank, Zionist and abettor of the subprime crisis. Is is any wonder that modern neoliberal national Democrats went so deep into mourning? 

Houston Democracy Project Blog reported Houston-area activist visited by Secret Service for writing 86 47 in chalk in driveway, has written letter to Todd Blanche asking for money from Trump’s victimization fund.

The Texas Observer calls Bo French's bid for Railroad Commissioner what it is.

The Current writes their political obituary for dead man walking Sen. John Cornyn.

D Magazine gives you the best story you'll read about Nolan Ryan beating up Robin Ventura.

Evil MoPac learns some things about Austin swingers.

The TPA wishes Texas Public Radio and the San Antonio Report all the best with their new partnership.

Trump endorses Paxton; bad framing by the Texas Tribune; stupidity by Talarico camp

Yes, the first two days of early voting are in the can, but Rethuglicans still like day-of election day voting more than Democraps, so Trump's endorsement of Kenny Boy over Big John Cornyn has plenty of potential election effect.

And, it really does, as his Pure Gall cutout from the Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ world just beat Thomas Massie by 10 percentage points in Kentucky tonight, after toppling Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy a week earlier.

Per the Trib at the top link:

In teasing the endorsement Tuesday morning, Trump said he’s “had my mind made up for a long time.”

Typical Trump bullshit, of course. The easy refudiation then is, "Then why didn't you make the endorsement a long time ago?" 

Trump probably got showed some Kentucky 4th District polling that showed Gallrein was up on Massie and so Trump figured he could look like kingmaker in the Texas Senate race now. 

The Trib then claims that Trump is making the endorsement now because he thinks Dem nominee James Talarico is a weak candidate. Only problem is that the quote of Trump's they cite is from March.

They're not the only ones screwing up.

A Talarico spox said:

“With all the baggage, it’s no wonder that one-in-four John Cornyn voters say they’ll vote for James Talarico if Paxton is the nominee,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said.

In reality, the poll said 4 percent, not 1-in-4, and that's actually lower than with Paxton backers. The poll also said Paxton was comfortably ahead, as of a month ago. And, that's not just one poll. See here.

Frankly, I can see how this plays out. Paxton gets the nomination, Talarico and campaign team think this gives them an edge, and instead, they get their ass kicked in November. 

Meanwhile, Kenny Boy has another office scandal, this one over a plea deal giving a child sex abuser a misdemeanor. 

Graham Platner's tattoo (and other things)

I'm not wasting massive time on it. And, I'm only providing one link as a direct reference link — Snopes. Then two other backgrounders plus an image.

I broadly agree on two things.

One is that, unless we have a much better photo than an underlit video-grab from more than a decade ago, it's hard to say how closely his tattoo resembled the Totenkopf.

And, that — the Totenkopf — is the second link. Not to justify it, today, but it has a pre-Nazi and even a pre-German past. 

And, not even a past! The Royal Lancers in the UK use their own version of it today. 

As for him not knowing what it meant?

Quite possible. How much does the average 22-year-old or whatever Marine enlisted man who has not gone past high school level know about this imagery, versus of course the swastika. For all you doing callouts, was the Totenkopf covered in your high school world history class? Did you know what it was before you decided this was a good opportunity to dogpile on him? 

And, that would be one thing enough if he got it at a bar near an American base.

Instead, he's in Croatia getting drunk in a bar with fellow Marines. Did ANY of them know what this symbol meant?

Or rather, per pre-WWII Germany and today's Royal Lancers, did it just look cool? 

Likely the latter, though not as cool as the Royal Lancers.

Meanwhile, an ultra-Orthodox retweeting racist Richard Hanania to try to "own the Zionists" or whatever he was doing is on pretty shaky ground doing a callout of Platner, then getting indignant when I called them a Zionist. Lie down with fleas ...

Now, as for the Croatian tattoo shop owner? Given the Ustashe in World War II, complete with a Croatian SS unit (founded before the 1st Galician of modern Russia-Ukraine infamy) followed by the right-wing thuggery of Franjo Tudjman as first leader of post-independence Croatia, I have little doubt they knew at least the general history of the Totenkopf. 

This is not to say that I don't find Graham Platner troubling.

Obviously, I can't read all his deleted Reddit posts. They were written years later. For someone who claims they were leftist by then, a certain amount of them cut against that grain. And, yes, PTSD is serious and real. But, per the Latin bon mot, "in vino veritas," PTSD doesn't necessarily cause an "alt-persona" to arise. 

This also show that he's a political novice. Experienced candidates running for something as high as a US Senate seat do "oppo research" on themselves to find out in advance what opponents might dig up, and to be prepared in advance. 

I didn't think to check his Wiki much in advance. I'm as troubled by the fact that his family was moneyed enough to send him to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss as anything else, even if he got financial aid. Did he get booted, though? That's not the only high school he attended. The other is also private, originally Catholic but now nonreligious. 

Texas Progressives talk polls and nukes

Off the Kuff brings you two more polls showing James Taalrico leading the race for US Senate in Texas. 

SocraticGadfly loves him some James Hansen, agrees that we're in a climate crisis, not just climate change, that will lead to 5°C of temperature increase in a century without strong action soon, knows that WAY too many people still don't get this, and hates that the likes of Michael Mann have attacked him as alarmist, BUT explains in great detail why he is far more skeptical than Hansen about nuclear energy being a major part of the solution.

Inside Climate News notes the great number of commercial lithium mining claims that are on American Indian tribal land. 

The Observer warns even wingnut landowners on the border to read the fine print on Team Trump's requests to survey their land. 

Too bad, in its runoff overview, the Observer won't tell you to vote for neither Colin Allred nor Julie Johnson and to undervote this in the general. 

Camp Mystic will not reopen this summer. Next question: Will it next summer? 

Is Havana / Cancun Ted Cruz running for president again in 2028? He's clearly working on the Trump Toady angle.

Contra Kalshi's claims, and riffing off the Trib, wondering why both Dannie Goeb and Kenny Boy have been slow to act or react, I think predictions markets are gaming, not a commodities-like futures market. Pro sports sub-reddits very much agree. 

ICE may have deported a US citizen. 

UNT has a massive budget shortfall, mainly cuz Trumpism has led to a big drop in international students. Faculty buyouts are a partial solution; per the Trib, a number of humanities profs are gladly accepting, saying UNT has gone well beyond the state-mandated minimum in anti-diversity. 

More Pete Hegseth brilliance — wanting to build a data center in the aridity of Fort Bliss. 

Chris Hooks extends his John Cornyn bromance to Shrub Bush and isn't worth further effort on addressing. 

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project spoke about empowering ourselves at a May Day event at a Unitarian Church in The Woodlands. As always-The next action is when you organize it.

Steve Vladeck and Law Dork critique the SCOTUS "ruling" in the lawsuit over Texas' Congressional re-redistricting.

Space City Weather answers your questions about El Nino, why it always rains on weekends, and more.

The Texas Signal talks to some drag performers about what they feel they can legally do now.

Texas Rural Reporter uses the example of a kid from Spearman being drafted by the NFL to show how important public schools are in rural communities and why the voucher program is a threat to them.

City of Yes talks about making space for the things we don't like but still need.

Looking at the background of James Talarico

The Observer talks about James Talarico's rise starting with his time in Teach for America, above all noting that it gave him an early and strong networking system. The piece is also honest about some of the big money that has helped TFA and its political leadership spinoff, and their support for charter schools.

TFA’s recruitment, with its many rounds of interviews and an ostensible audition, promises to field an annual crop of future leaders in education. For most participants, their plans involve this short stint in the classroom before heading off to work in law, campus administration, policymaking, business, or the sprawling tentacles of the nonprofit industrial complex. TFA is less a teacher preparation program than it is a finishing school for future decision-makers in the multilayered technocracy of education policy, one dominated by elites who have historically boosted charter-school expansion. I am a rarity in that I still teach in the city and campus where I did my TFA stint.

The big names include Netflix' Reed Hastings and LinkedIn's Reed Hoffman, Walton family heirs and former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Read the whole thing, and realize that, if elected, while Talarico will be an agent of change from John Cornyn, he will NOT be an agent of change from standard neoliberal Democracy. 

That networking background helps explain his $27M 1Q campaign haul.